Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The Great Peter Guber Real Estate Sell Off Continues

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the last few years, large living entertainment executive and power producer Peter Guber and his Yoga fiend wife Tara have been thinning their fat real estate portfolio, which at one time included may-jer properties in some of the better zip codes of Colorado, Hawaii and California.

In the early naughts, Mister and Missus Guber put Mandalay Ranch–a scenic 650-acre spread in the Owl Creek Valley near star-choked Aspen, CO–on the market with a hair raising asking price of $63,000,000. The pristine property, according to previous reports, included a 15,000 square foot main house with 7 bedrooms, 7.5 poopers, and an indoor gym basketball court.

The Gubers caused a bit of a brouhaha with the local Pitkin County government in 1992 when they built two illegal guest cabins and a barn in a sensitive wildlife habitat. The Tinseltown titan and his legal eagles brokered a deal with the local officials that allowed him to keep the cabins but tear the barn down. After several years on the market, the pretty property, which includes easements that allow the ranch's resident snowcat access to the West Buttermilk and Two Creeks ski areas in Snowmass, sold in early 2004 for a whopping and, for then, record breaking $46,000,000.

A few years before Mister and Missus Guber decided to sell their Aspen ranch , in 1998, they forked over close to $7,300,000–or $7,500,000 depending on what report you read–for 171-acres of ocean front property on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The real estate size queens went on to build a 13,154 square foot plantation style house with 6 or 8 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms including a master suite with dual poopers and, somewhat oddly, his and her living rooms because, you know, sometimes married couples don't want to be settin' in the same living room before going to bed.

Anyhoo, the palm tree peppered property on the northeastern shore of Kauai, which they not particularly cleverly named Tara Plantation, also included a couple of 4,000 square foot guest houses, stables for horsies, a tennis court, swimming pool, beach cabana, 3 bedroom caretaker's cottage, and–natch–a yoga studio where the Missus Guber could twist and tie up her body in complicated and uncomfortable looking yoga poses. By 2004, the Gubers decided to divest themselves of their sprawling Polynesian paradise and listed the estate with an asking price of $46,500,000. The posh property lingered and languished on the market for years before the asking price was dropped to a still stomach churning $39,500,000. That price chop in late 2008 must have brought out the big bucks buyers because shortly thereafter, the movie mogul's Hawaiian hideaway was sold–in late 2009–for $28,000,000. The buyer, whose identity remains a mystery, are not, according to what one report called the 'coconut wireless,' celebrities or household names.

Mister and Missus Guber's 10-year long real estate sell off continues in Los Angeles where they've recently listed one of their three adjacent properties in the swank enclave of Bel Air for $16,250,000.

As best as Your Mama can tell from a late night peek and poke around the property records and early morning perusal of previous reports, the Gubers began cobbling together their trio of posh properties back in May of 1991 when they picked up their primary residence from media magnate Grant Tinker for $7,200,000. At the time they purchased the 1978 Mediterranean, situated up a long, gated drive on 5.18 acres with big city views, it measured almost 7,000 square feet and included just two bedrooms and for poopers in the main house, a guest cottage tennis court, swimming pool, and a dance studio. Mister Guber, according to former Los Angeles Times celebrity real estate writer Ruth Ryon, planned on doing a bit of remodeling including adding a "bedroom wing" and possibly a funicular or some other hillside climbing transportation contraption, to connect the the estate to the recently closed for renovations Hotel Bel-Air, which sits just below the estate. Records currently on file with the Los Angeles county tax man show the residence now measures 13,933 square feet and inlcudes 4 bedrooms and 7 poopers. It does not appear that Mister Guber installed his fantasy funicular folly which would have reduced his commute to the the historic and eye-poppingly expensive Hollywood hideaway where everyone who is anyone has lunched on the tiled patio which has a dee-luxe and dee-voon radiant heat system installed for warming the tootsies on cool evenings.

Property records show that a couple of years later, in June of 1994, Mister and Missus Guber picked up a smaller property next door to their estate, which includes a 2,766 square foot house that, according to information we dug up on the interweb, has been transformed into a serene yoga sanctuary for Missus Guber and all her karmic contortionist pals.

Property records show the couple scooped up the third piece of their property puzzle in August of 1996 paying $3,600,000 for a 5.38 acre parcel and its 1959 A. Quincy Jones designed mid-century modern house. This is the property currently listed for sale with a price tag of $16,250,000. Your Mama does not know why the Gubers might have wanted to add a third property to their already huge Bel Air compound but according to the fine folks at Movieland Directory, the Guber's snatched up the property for use as and "arcade" for their children. Sweet jeezis, ain't life sweet when you've got pockets deep enough to spend millions of clams on a property simply so you don't have to listen to your children work the Wii or whatever damn video game system people played back in the late 1990s?

Property records show the existing house measures 4,324 square feet and listing information states the single story house has very high ceilings and includes 3 bedrooms and 4 poopers. Interestingly, the property is listed as being sold with just 2 nearly flat acres, so it would appear to Your Mama–who really knows nuthin' from a toenail about the details of the situation–that the Guber's have split the property and plan to keep the remaining 3 and some acres.

This is not the first time the Gubers have tried to sell their guest house or children's arcade or whatever damn thing they called the thing. Back in the fall of 2003 they fruitlessly listed the property on the open market with an asking price of $12,000,000. Apparently the Gubers later shopped the property around off-market because way back in late 2008 Your Mama heard from Belinda Belairrealestateagent who whispered the rumor that dee-vorcing super producer Brad Grey was thisclose to buying the property but, when push came to closing, opted out of the transaction.